My “European Adventure” has officially ended and boy was it fun!! From a whirlwind start in Stockholm to a slow end in Besançon many countries have been visited and tens of thousands of steps walked in so many cities of the old continent we call Europe!! It has been a dream vacation on so many fronts: buoyant city streets, beautiful beaches, rugged and beautiful hikes and nice people everywhere and at all times of the day and very safe streets!
There are people who like to plan things to the minute and there are people who go with the flow, I fit in the second group : go with the flow!! I don’t wake up with a to-do list, I just do things as they come! I recall an office mate in grad school who wouldn’t talk to me because I was not on his list for the day!! Talking to me was not an item on his list!!!! That was shocking to me then, it still is today. My strength lies in adjusting to the changing tasks of the day! When on vacation, I just go with flow … Yes there are some landmarks and key places to see in every city but I don’t see them in any particular order like, 1,2, 3… just let things flow!!
From Stockholm to Prague, things were moving fast and furious but then I hit the slowdown button in Paris and recouped my energy before the one week energy sink in Crete where a slow day at the beach was followed by a high energy day on a wild beach or a park, like Samaria Gorge!! Besançon was awesome as it offered hiking paths and city walks with beautiful streets and parks !!
Making reservations when tired can be bad for your wallet as one is less alert to mistakes and artificial intelligence trying to guess what you want when typing, and it did happen to me in Berlin .. trying to buy a train ticket to Dresden from Berlin late at night, well I ended up buying a ticket from Munich to Dresden instead… I found out the next day I had the wrong ticket because my train never showed up and my hotel room was already reserved so I had to buy a new ticket at the station and I was off to Dresden few hours later than planned. Oh well I said, lesson learned !! Yesterday was also eventful as I missed my train to Paris from Besançon, why? Because they have three train stations in the same city and I went to the wrong one!!! Again, I had to buy new ticket at the station for another train… so paying attention online and checking your documents are two important things I learned this time … the monetary cost was minimal but the time wasted was not ..
Traveling is my middle name and I have lots of far away places yet to see so … I will see you all virtually on my next trip!!! Here are pictures from my various stops this trip
Countries and Cities visited in this trip
Stockholm
Oslo
Tallinn
Helsinki
Warsaw
Berlin
Dresden
Prague
Paris
Samaria Gorge, Crete
Seitan Limani Beach, Crete
Besançon, downtown
The maillot Jaune of the Tour de France
